The Hitchhiker's Guide to Nearly Everything
by Wacko the Sane
Summary: Guide entries for several random things, R
1. Time and Peanuts

**A/N: OK, a little idea I had after some people commented on how much I sounded like the Guide in my 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Film'. These two aren't very good at all, so I'd be very pleased if some people gave me some ideas for the next few entries.**

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Entry 2346762873641: **Time** _

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines time as a concept far too technical to even attempt to understand, but tries to explain it anyway.

Lunchtime, it says, is well-regarded as the most important time of the day, but waiting time and delay time also take up much of the day for those primitive beings who still use public transport. Time continues unabated however, meaning that most of the galaxy arrives late for work, people grow old and so do stars. And so on…

It also notes that people of the species Harafaraf are the only known race to have broken the boundaries of time; they live backwards. Meaning that they are the only species that actually enjoy hangovers as they know that a wonderfully good night will follow.

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Entry 9834762093847: **Peanuts** _

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of peanuts; though they may be small brown and salty, the humble peanut can provide a carbon based life form with the vitality needed to go through a matter transference beam.

Peanuts are widely available in most pubs and bars throughout the galaxy, and most cost very little. With the exception of the Pan Galactic Peanuts, salted with salt from the seas of Santraginus V, the perfect accompaniment its marketing corporations say, to the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. A packet of these will set you back several million Altarian dollars.

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A/N: Not much I know, but I need some ideas for other entries guys. Reviews! **


	2. Camping and Fruitbowls

**A/N: Cheers for the great ideas, sorry that I can't use everyone's but I'll try to fit them in a bit, but they all gave me good starting points for other ideas. So, lovely random subjects…**

_Entry 25390000001:_ **Camping**

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of camping, avoid if at all possible, unless clean toilets, flat ground, warm night, dry weather, and chocolate are guaranteed. Though it does go on to say that if one should find oneself stuck in a tent for the night with no possible means of escape, you should be prepared for the worst.

Putting up a tent, it says, is well regarded as one of the hardest tasks in the universe (besides folding up a map), and there are many organisations who can help you cope with the trauma this induces (see _what do to if you think you may be about to commit suicide_). There is an art, or rather a knack to putting up a tent. Unfortunately there are no known beings who can do it efficiently, so don't panic if you can't.

When camping it is essential to bring: a tent; something to sleep on, or in, or under, or behind, or in front of, or wherever else you might like to sleep; food (unless you don't want to eat, or are a member of the Flatelligulum species and therefore will eat your own hats); a stove (unless you want cold food, in which case a stove is not necessary, but hats do often need to be cooked before ingestion); a bag (for storing the innumerable amount of things that are not on this list but that you will bring anyway) and a towel.

_Entry 308112: _**Fruit Bowls**

Fruit bowls, says the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, are generally used for storing fruit. But this may not always be the case… Fruit are defined as the produce of a flowering plant that has been killed for consumption by primitive life-forms trying to eat healthily. Therefore, the fruit bowl has become purely an object of nostalgia.

Take the banana for example; a long bent yellow fruit that is instantly recognisable in the portraits of famous fruit bowls. So much so that it has had to go into hiding to escape the millions of enthusiasts looking for its autograph.

Most fruit bowls are ornamental and can be bought around the galaxy in antiques shops, but there are a few shops that will still stock working fruit bowls. These are to be found on primitives planets like _Earth _and _Aldebaran 2_. However demand is high, so you might wish to join a fruit bowl society, many guarantee a good quality reproduction fruit bowl after 50 years of membership. More information can be found in the book _Fruit Bowls Are For Life, Not Just For Christmas_, which also provides a vivid insight into the live processes of a fruit bowl and its role in today's society - if that's what swings your boat.

**A/N: A bit longer, but I'm sticking to 2 per chapter. Any more good ideas? Don't Panic if not, just as long as you're enjoying it ;)**


	3. Slippers and Exams

**A/N: Hello, sorry these took longer than previously, I was inflicted with the second problem. Cheers for the lovely reviews. I think someone asked for slippers a while ago, so here you go.**

_Entry 4597235:_** Slippers**

_The Galactic Book of Bedtime Clothing_ defines slippers as _delicate cloth artefacts which allow the foot to be inserted and subsequently warmed during cold winter nights when many a foot has been frozen._

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _defines slippersas _soft shoes that keep your feet warm. _It does go on however to tell the impoverished hitchhiker what he needs to know about them:

Slippers are the ideal present for a hitchhiker who has hiked his way round have the galaxy to arrive to wherever he calls home with cold feet. Not only do they provide the utmost comfort and warm, they also go very well with towels and dressing gowns. Hitchhikers looking for the fashionable 'Arthur Dent' dress style should definitely invest in a pair of slippers and a dressing gown, a garment which this famous frood has introduced to the Galaxy.

As beings age they tend to become more attached to their slippers; elderly carbon-based life-forms will often stay in their slippers until the day they pop their clogs, or rather more relevantly, their slippers. Many scientists have tried to analyse this phenomena, though none can think of a reason why it might happen. The best theory so far is that of ex-Galactic President, ex-confidence trickster and ex- pretty much every thing in the galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, who apparently posed this question to his long-dead great-grandfather Zaphod Beeblebrox IV during a séance. According to Beeblebrox elderly life-forms need the comfort and warmth more than younger life-forms because they have less fat insulation, and also because they find it harder to run around there is no point in them wearing practical shoes.

_Entry 3525000000000099: _**Exams**

In the more developed areas of the Galaxy, _says the Hitchhiker's Guide_, the necessity for exams is practically abolished because of the easy availability of products such as Thinking Caps, Clever Clogs, Smart Arses and Big Heads. Also, as very few people actually have jobs that require anything but on-the-job training, there is little point in their existence.

Unfortunately some primeval planets still use an examination system, as their societies still include jobs that need qualifications. A team was sent out from the Erotica planet chain to a small planet called Earth a few years ago, to see if they could encourage its potential as one of the immensely popular 'Brothel Planets' that are scattered about the galaxy. Unfortunately the only person they came into contact with was an elderly woman who didn't think very much of their iridescent coat, and ended their lives with a swipe of her fly-swat.

Exams generally take place in large halls in the hottest season on the planet, so inside the participants sweat with anxiety and pressure, whilst outside a grounds-man will be loudly hosing flowerbeds; causing much discomfort for those participants with poor bladder control.

The pointlessness of these exams does not need to be stressed, but those currently partaking in such activities should remember the fundamental phrase 'Don't Panic'.

_The passage ends with a footnote to the effect that Megadodo Publications will take no responsibility for poor exam marks gained by following the Guide's philosophy._

**A/N: Not my best, they go a bit off the subject, but hey. And for those of you who cannot deal with occasional political incorrectness, should go stick your head in a pig.**


	4. Baths and Radio

**A/N: Hello my fellow hitchhikers, it has been a while hasn't it? But I realised how much I enjoyed doing this and I had some time, so I did you another. It's not very funny though…**

_Entry 9084315222:_ **Baths**

Baths should, as is a well-established fact throughout the Galaxy, be long and hot. It is absolutely pointless having a short cold bath, if you want something short and cold see FROZEN PYGMIES OF VINDEMIATRIX 4.

As well as being long and hot, baths should be deep. There is nothing less uncomfortable than submerging yourself in a tub where the water comes only an inch up your body. The only disadvantage of deep baths is that if you happen to fall asleep whilst bathing you may drown, to prevent this unlikely occurrence ask someone to check on you frequently.

Other problems caused by the use of baths are varied; the Galactic Dire Peril Rescue Service claim that over eighty percent of their call-outs are from life forms who have got their tentacle, claw, antennae, toe or other protracted limb stuck up the tap. There is also the age-old problem of pruning (it is of course extremely hard to produce fantastic works of topiary from your bath tub) which leaves the bather's skin wrinkled and waterlogged. Although in most species the skin retains its usual texture after being Home and Dry, or at least Home and Vigorously Towelling Yourself Off, a few unlucky life-forms can be scarred for life from their very first exposure to long hot baths.

As well as providing well needed Rest and Recuperation, baths are sometimes exploited as a way of avoiding something that really needs doing, like writing scripts for example, or as the Lunhulas from Tucana know only too well, feeding one's children.

_Entry 24200934104:_ **Radio**

The medium of radio is well regarded around the galaxy as the primary source of news and entertainment. The sub-etha radio wavebands whiz around the galaxy, bringing even the most primeval life forms some kind of entertainment. Although most civilizations go through a phase where they insist that television is the way forward and the older radio gets pushed into the sidelines, after a few generations they come to realise how wrong they were and investments into modernising radio boom.

The actual radio machine is extremely flexible, in that it can be made as small and as sensitive as technology can make it without loss of quality. Modern radios only require the merest wave of the hand to change its channel, and a nod of the head to configure it.

It is of course scientifically proven that the brain of a carbon-based life form responds much more efficiently to aural representations rather than visual, and that increasing developments in sensovision (which is not only visual and aural, but includes the other three senses) has led to life forms becoming not only brainwashed by the media, but also deficient in imagination, causing uprisings of literary lovers around the galaxy demanding that it should be banned and that more books should be read and produced. This of course was mostly ignored.

The best radio station known in existence is BBC Radio 4, which describes itself as intellectual speech. But contains the widest variety of programs in the galaxy; from politics to painting, trigonometry to trekking, comedy to cuckoos, hair growth to haddocks… Though sometimes regarded as boring without music it has brought to its small planet Earth some excellent literature, as well as promoting the work of talented broadcasters, comedians and writers. And of course it introduced its public to this very book several years ago, so the people in charge obviously knew where there towels were.

**A/N: OK, I know the radio one really wasn't funny, but I needed to write it! It means something to me… I would also take this opportunity to recommend the programs on trigonometry and hair growth; as far as I can remember (they were broadcast sometime around midnight) they were very informative and highly entertaining. But apart from that… was the bath at all funny? Come to think of it, this whole chapter was about Douglas really even if it wasn't funny… **


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